A landmark and lonely moment is when you realize you’re invisible. The cliche, “hidden in plain sight,” implies a conscious decision to remain hidden (or at least that’s how it’s mostly used), so it’s not that. By contrast, the invisibility of which I speak is the necessary symptom of an introspective and artistic life. Here’s what I’ve come to believe: the more a person moves about in the interior shadowland of his own mind–a space resembling, but not replicating, the physical world–the more that person feels a disconnect between what resonates as reality for him and what those around him seem to accept as the same. The invisible man’s reality is mostly within and is, therefore, closer to the heart. A general understanding of the world, like what close-knit communities often share, becomes nearly impossible for the primarily inward-living person. In the gap between inner and outer, values misalign. In fact, values originate altogether differently.

Probably the disconnect happens for everyone to varying degrees, maybe more for the introvert than for the extrovert. Yet it happens even more for the artist, and here’s a theory why: the artist is obligated to believe in his inner world. There’s no dismissing his most secret thoughts, writing them off as daydreaming or zoning out. Dreams, desires, memories, fantasies, imagination–all are raw materials; all are source material for origins.

I fear I’m viewing this conviction of invisibility solipsistically, though. Because I’m a writer, maybe I’ve accepted things about myself I’ve merely made up–a functioning self-delusion, in which I’m guilty of believing a problem unique to a few that is really the existential dilemma of many.

Regardless what’s true or imagined, the feeling of being invisible occurs at distinct moments–moments which I could list, if time permitted. That’s why this post is a “Part 1,” because I might return to this idea and try to work through it. That is, unless I decide to just keep it all inside–to keep it invisible.